View full sizeRoss William Hamilton, The OregonianBlazers point guard Andre Miller puts up a shot against Mavericks center Tyson Chandler in Game 3 of the teams' first-round playoff series.

Nobody in the Trail Blazers locker room hangs out by his locker before a game more than Andre Miller. He reads game notes. He watches game film. And he treats his aging legs.

Outside of Gerald Wallace, there also is probably nobody in the Blazers locker room who keeps more to himself than Miller. There is little interaction with teammates, and he's certainly not going to join any pregame banter with media as would the more engaging Blazers like Wesley Matthews, Patty Mills, Rudy Fernandez or Nicolas Batum.

But Miller is very approachable, very intelligent and extremely fascinating. As I have written before, he has become one of my favorite guys on the team.

Before Game 2 in Dallas, I figured a major storyline in this series would be the Blazers guards posting the smaller Mavericks guards. Miller, more than anybody besides Brandon Roy, is the most accomplished post player of the Blazers guards.

In today's NBA, most guards, and certainly most point guards, are concerned with three-pointers, silky jumpers and dunks. Post ups are not sexy. Post ups do not lure shoe contracts.

So where did Miller learn his post-up game.

Before Game 2 Miller said he learned to post up as a youth on the streets of Watts and Compton in south central Los Angeles.

He said he was "chubby" as a kid, and he was often pitted down low against bigger, older players.

I went back to him before Game 5, and wanted to know more about his basketball upbringing, in particular his schooling in playing the post game.

That's when he talked about how as a kid he would pile into a van filled with adults for "death wish" trips to rival neighborhoods. How his youth games rarely finished because of fights. And how he would listen to his family elders talk about the beauty of a perfectly executed team play, and never about the flash of a single player.

It was the first peek inside Andre Miller that the private 35-year-old has ever afforded me. And now, I understand why he was so quick to bull-rush Blake Griffin on the court this season. Why he stood up to coach Nate McMillan last season. And why he is not about himself, but rather his team, when he plays.

And most of all, I got a sense that before this Blazers season ends, Andre Miller isn't going to let it happen without a fight.

Roaming south central L.A. with a basketball

There were packs of kids growing up in the streets of Watts, and Miller was the chubby one who always had a basketball under his arm.

Every day during the summers, he said he would walk the streets between Watts and Compton looking for hoop games. He had a big family, and ran with mostly cousins, hopping fences of schools to get on a court.

"In the streets. I was in the streets," Miller said. "In the park, in the neighborhood, wherever. Wherever there were people playing basketball, I was there. Me and my cousins would play basketball every day, all day, in the summer. We would jump parks, or go to different neighborhoods."

He would most frequent the 109th Street court in Watts, and the 109th Street School, which the younger kids took a liking to.

"We called them dunk courts because the hoops were only 8-feet," Miller said.

Behind the Locker Room Door

Throughout the playoffs reporter Jason Quick is going Behind the Locker Room Door to tell the behind-the-scenes stories of the Blazers. Read previous installments.

He grew up fast. His mother Andrea was a single parent who worked, which forced her to teach her son to be independent. By age 6, Miller says he was riding the city buses through Watts and Compton.

He speaks of Watts and Compton as one, as the two districts butt against one another in South Central Los Angeles, with Compton the more southern neighborhood, dwarfing Watts in size.

Today, Miller carries a large tattoo on his back, with the outline of California and old English-style lettering that reads "E. Watts." He is private revealing the roots of the tattoo, saying only that he lost a bet growing up.

He became a fixture at the local YMCA, joining every sporting team, including football, baseball and even swimming.

"We had a couple swim meets, but that didn't work out," Miller said. "And I was a pitcher in baseball, but could hardly throw a strike."

No, he was a baller, and he had an insatiable thirst for basketball knowledge.

He would get his schooling from two sources: the television, where Magic Johnson and the Lakers were in the heyday of the "Showtime" Era, and from the Midnight Leagues in Compton and Watts.

The Midnight Leagues were designed to keep men off the streets and to deter gang activity. These were games that featured men, not boys. Some were good enough to have played college basketball, and more than often, the players were good enough to get a scholarship, but for whatever reason never made it.

"There were some guys in those night leagues, man, you would look up to those guys like they were NBA players," Miller said.

Miller was a kid, still not yet in high school, but he would tag along with his older cousins to the Midnight Leagues, driving through the unfriendly streets of Compton, Inglewood and Lynwood.

"At the time, my mom had a van and my older cousin would take the van and everyone would hop in the van," Miller said. "We would carpool to other neighborhoods and they wasn't necessarily good neighborhoods.

"You would go over there on a death wish, really," Miller said.

Was he scared?

"Yeah, I was scared because I was with older people," Miller said. "But the good thing was I picked up how they liked to play. They understood how to play, that's the thing. They all had their agenda away from the court, away from basketball, but once they got onto a team they played together. It was fun to follow."

He was in sixth grade, and his education of basketball was beginning.

Miller said his family was filled with basketball enthusiasts. They all watched and studied the game, and praised not the individual standout, but the beauty of a well-executed team play. That's the way it always was in their spirited talks about basketball, everything was about team.

"I think I've been surrounded by friends and family that actually understand how to play basketball and actually follow basketball and are not selfish," Miller said. "You know, I've been told a couple times, 'Man, shoot a little bit more, and be more selfish,' ... But my family, they think team first, and these guys, some of them never played organized basketball. So just being able to have those types of people around me; we all understand and talk basketball the right way. I think that helped me develop."

But one couldn't just survive on basketball smarts in Watts. You also had to be tough.

After seventh grade, Miller graduated from the YMCA and joined the Parks and Recreation leagues.

"The park leagues I played in, it was like if you didn't know how to play tough, or didn't have any toughness, you might as well don't come in the gym," Miller said flatly.

So was there fighting?

"Yeah. Lot of fighting. That was just part of the game. Fights would break out while the game was going on, and then it would just be fighting," Miller said. "They would cancel the game, and then come back the next day and fight."

Miller was quickly identified around the neighborhood as special. He had exceptional dribbling skills, called "handle" on the streets, and was a big-time scorer, a much better shooter, he says, than he is now. His basketball skill became somewhat of a shield against the negative shrapnel that pierced so many others' dreams in Watts.

"I was lucky that I was around a lot of guys who understood I was a kid in the neighborhood that played basketball. I always had a ball in my hand, following around other kids. I was one of the lucky ones," Miller said. "A lot of guys had talent, a lot of talent, but everything fell in the right place for me."

By high school, though, he soon found that point guards who could score and had handle were a dime a dozen.

"I had to find my niche," Miller said. "So I ended up playing the post game."

His teen years were spent perfecting his post game. He lost some of his chubbiness, but he was still bigger and stronger than the smooth point guards his age. He found he liked the power he felt when he posted up his defender, and it also gave him the opportunity to incorporate his favorite moves learned from the men in the Midnight Leagues.

In particular, he started using the shot fake, which he copied from his cousin Keith Arrington – an exaggerated, two-hand move with the ball as if he is shooting, only to whip it down then go immediately back up. It is a move he still uses today.

"I like to feel I'm stronger than most point guards," Miller said. "And there were times on the streets when you wanted to test each other. So you would go to post moves and see who is stronger. A lot of it is balance. Some of it is feel."

Difficulties vs. Dallas

In Game 1 of the Blazers' series against Dallas, Miller had success posting 6-foot Dallas point guard JJ Barea. He scored on back-to-back possessions in the second quarter, forcing Dallas coach Rick Carlisle to take Barea out of the game.

Since Game 1, however, the Blazers have had limited success posting with Miller. Part of that, Miller says, is because he is adhering to his old-school philosophy of being a point guard. Pass first, score later.

"I don't try to do it too much. It has to be in the flow of the offense, I don't want to draw too much attention to having the ball," Miller said. "I mean, I feel like I can post up every guard. But my job as a point guard is to the get the ball to L.A., find mismatches. Brandon has a mismatch with Terry, Nic has a mismatch every now and then, Gerald has them. So we all have opportunities, but there is only one ball out there. "

He says he is trying to find that balance in this series of taking what is given, but not being too aggressive.

"You have to mix it up," Miller said. "(Barea) is a small guy who likes to draw offensive fouls, so you can't be too aggressive there. But you also have to think 'This guy can't guard me; you are not strong enough.' That's the mentality you have to have if you want to score first."

In Monday's pivotal Game 5 in Dallas, the Trail Blazers were never able to get going offensively, mostly because they had trouble rebounding, which prevented them from getting into transition. In turn, that prevented the Blazers from exploiting their greatest advantage against Dallas: Posting up the Mavericks' smaller guards.

"It's tough to exploit mismatches when you are giving them offensive rebounds," Miller said of Dallas' 20 offensive rebounds in Game 5. "Our goal is to get the ball off the boards and create transition with our defense and that will create mismatches. You don't want to keep pounding; it puts so much pressure on L.A. to draw fouls and post up. He's been doing a good mixture of that the whole year ... but with this series there has been more banging, and that's what happens in the playoffs, you slow down a bit and you have to execute."

Decision time looms

Unless the Blazers win Thursday's Game 6, it could be the last time Miller plays for the Blazers. The team holds an option to sign Miller for $7.8 million for next season, but they have yet to exercise it. They have until June 30 to do so.

"I'm not worried about that," Miller said Wednesday. "The goal is to get to the second round and keep playing basketball. I'm a hungry player. Always been hungry."

In this series, Miller is the Blazers' second-leading scorer at 16.8 points, and leads the team in assists (5.8), all while displaying the spunk and fight of that kid in Watts. This after another stellar season in which he never missed a game to injury and posted remarkably consistent statistics as throughout his 12-year NBA career.

"It's their decision, but at this point in my career, you would feel like you have proven yourself enough, you know?" Miller said. "But it's good for me; it's extra motivation."

If his season ends Thursday, or if it ends in late June, Miller already knows his summer plans. They are the same as every summer since he was a kid: Hit the streets of Watts and Compton.

"Every summer," Miller said. "And I do the same thing I did when I was little, except walk around. I have a car now."

He doesn't have a home. Instead, he stays at his mom's home in Compton. The fellas come over, they cook out, talk sports and catch up.

His mom didn't want to leave the neighborhood, even though her son has made millions in his NBA career.

"My mom is a city person, she likes to be out in the streets, helping people in the community, staying busy," Miller said.

He takes pride in returning home every summer, going back to his roots.

"You know, it's never a surprise to people when I go home," Miller said with pride. "It's not like, 'We haven't seen you in a while.' They have respect for what I do as a pro."